The Professor's Response

Professor,

I have a question about homework problem #5, for section 3.2. Why is it that 1.02, 3, 31/30, and sqrt of 3 cannot be probabilities?

Respectfully,

Alex M

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Professor McGukian

Hi Alex,

There are a couple of lines in the notes that talk about two important properties of probability. You can find these two properties just before example 31 in section 3.2 of the notes. 

The answer to the question you asked is simple to answer here though.  All probability values must be between 0 and 1 inclusive. This means probabilities cannot be less than zero or more than one. Each of the numbers you listed above have decimal values that are greater than one.

 

Hope that answers it for you,

Professor McGuckian

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